The Greenhouse

Today I am finishing up the outside of the house. Photos tomorrow.

I thought you might like a tour of the greenhouse where I grow my miniature plants.

I did this building a while ago. It was a wooden terrarium kit that I bought at Pic'n Save before it became, in turn, Mac Frugel's and then Big Lots.

It was raw wood and plexi and I fancied it up with brick paper, black paint and lots of gold trim work.

I decided that I needed a place to grow all of the plants for other miniature buildings. It is perpetually changing. I get in a mood to make plants and they go in here. Then I get in the mood to build something else and some of the plants are ready to go in a new building. It's another of those never ending projects.

In this corner you will see that I like to grow geraniums. This is probably the one that I do the most. I like them because there are so many varieties and colors.

Many of these are done on the Nandina stems that I showed you yesterday. They are wonderful to work with and give the plants a very natural look.

Here is a close up of one of my favorites. It is a copy of a houseplant that I had at the time.

I think it was a grape ivy or some such. I don't remember the exact name. I had to draw all of the white veins in with a white Prismacolor pencil. That was a job! It took forever.

This is a close up of the fountain in the birdcage. I didn't steal from the greenhouse for that one.

The vines are made with cloth covered wire for stems. The yellow mums were made by coiling fringed pieces of quilling paper and carefully cutting each fringe to a point to make the petals.

If you keep a close eye out, you can make flowers from all sorts of things. The purple flowers are made of dried weeds that I found in my back yard and painted. Its a kind of desert grass that grows here. Most people pull them out. I look for them and guard them until they dry.

See you tomorrow.